Starving
by mojoco
Summary: One-parter. Vaughn's reflections, post "The Getaway."


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Starving

Rating: PG-13

Distribution: Cover Me; Anywhere else, please ask.

Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, they belong to JJ Abrams, Bad Robot Productions, etc.

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"You didn't even tell me you were seeing Alice again."

He'd responded with something along the lines of _Wait, what's this really about_? It had been an unnecessary question. Clearly, he'd hurt her, without really meaning to or knowing it. She'd cut him off every time he'd tried to explain about Alice in the past, repeatedly told him how nice Alice seemed. Now he realized that she didn't really give a damn whether Alice was nice or not. Alice was someone else. Just one more thing standing in the way of their being together.

There were a million things he should have said rather than _What's this really about_? He'd rewritten the conversation in his head a million times, and every time, he and Sydney had gotten even angrier than they had the time before, but damn it, they'd gotten somewhere. For once, they'd said what they really felt, instead of tiptoeing around the issue with hockey invitations and stories about fucking watches. 

"_Wait a minute_," he screams back, in this rewritten conversation. "_How was I supposed to know you would care that I was seeing Alice again? I put myself out there a million times, made my feelings pretty damned clear, and you never gave me any indication you felt the same way. Not until you found out about her_."

"_Vaughn--_"

But in his mind, for once he doesn't let her interrupt. For once he says what needs to be said. "_Besides, it's not like my personal life is something that ever comes up in the conversation. What was I supposed to say, 'here's your counter mission, and by the way, my ex-girlfriend Alice and I go out for the occasional movie_'?"

Her eyes flash, in his mind. "_At the hospital, she said she was your girlfriend_."

"_What was she supposed to say? 'Hi, I'm Alice, I'm Michael's ex-girlfriend but he still has me listed as his emergency contact and we still spend some time together'?"_

He imagines that Sydney juts her chin out stubbornly. "_If that's the truth_."

He sighs. "_Look, Sydney, whatever her title is, she and I both know that it's over, okay? We're not in love anymore. There's no spark. We care about each other, we enjoy spending time together, but that's it. We'll stay friends. We probably won't always spend as much time together as we do now._"

Sydney still doesn't like this. Isn't willing to accept this. "_At the bar, she said you'd been amazing. She put her hand on your arm. She was marking her territory, Vaughn. She saw me as competition._"

He rolls his eyes. "_Sydney, she_--"

"_It's okay_," she interrupts. "_If I had you, I wouldn't want to let you go, either_."

Maybe it is arrogant of him to imagine her saying this. But it's a nice image, anyway, and he imagines himself responding sweetly. "_Sydney, you do have me_."

And he takes her in his arms, and he kisses her, breaking just about every rule in the book, and maybe after that he doesn't feel the need to ask her out to that restaurant in France, to take such a dangerous risk just to make sure she knows how he feels. In this alternate scenario he has created, she already knows.

But maybe he asks her anyway, just because he knows he will enjoy taking her there and he is, after all, starving. 

Maybe this all ends the same, with gunfire and dead bodies and the two of them so shaken that he considers asking to be removed as her case officer and she probably writes him off in her mind, decides that the risks are too great and that any future between the two of them is hopeless.

The only thing is? This hasn't ended.

They will still see each other every day. He will still send her out on life or death missions. 

Their feelings will not go away just because they want them to. He knows this, because he has tried a million times not to feel anything for her.

And one day, as he promised her not so long ago, it will end. They will take down SD-6. 

And once he has her, truly has her, he will never let her go.


End file.
